"Allen Steele - A King of Infinite Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

Steele, Allen - [Near-Space 05] - A King of Infinite Space




King of Infinite Space
Allen Steele




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CHAPTER
ONE
LIVE THROUGH THIS

"Why? Why not?" тАФTimothy Leary; last words

The night sky always looks the same, no matter where you go: look up, and the universe opens before
you. The constellations may be different, the stars in new positions, but it's always the same cosmos: a
seemingly endless darkness, broken only by tiny lights that could be planets, suns, nebulae, even entire
galaxies. No one really knows how large this universe is, where its true limits are, or how long it may
last....

But nothing lasts forever. Not even eternity.

This is the story of the last day of my life, and everything that happened after that.

To say that it's hot is an understatement. St. Louis in mid-July is a perpetual sauna; the temperature only
dips below eighty for a few hours between midnight and dawn, and by early afternoon you could
probably get a good lunch by scooping the brains out of your skull, dropping them on the sidewalk, and
cracking open an egg on top. Downtown, yuppies scurry from air-conditioned offices to air-conditioned
bistros, their business suits and knee-length dresses clinging to their skin like fifty-percent cotton rags,
while out in the 'burbs their spouses sit in stalled traffic as they crawl to the shopping mall, there to seek
respite from the heat and humidity by buying more stuff they really don't need. At home, little kids stare
at cartoons on the tube and chase each other with Super Soakers, while their teenage siblings hang out in